Jan. 12--As the family of Tom "Slim" Buchanan looked through his belongings over the weekend, they learned a lot about the 87-year-old South Side man but nothing about the mystery behind his death this week -- a decades-old gunshot wound that officials say eventually killed him.
Buchanan's cousin and closest relative, 80-year-old Mattie Matthews, and her daughter, Vernetta Jones, entered Armour Square Apartments No. 211 on Saturday to begin preparing to move everything out of the assisted-living apartment where he lived for the past year or so.
They found out that he loved eating, especially hot dogs, and enjoyed his friends. There was a framed photo of his mother, an undated photo of him, a White Sox baseball cap, cough medicine, a half-eaten bowl of Alpha-Bits cereal, laundry soap, clothing, a red bicycle pump and a bottle of imitation Cool Water cologne.
Inside a metal file box were statements from Social Security, rent adjustments, apartment leases, an optometrist bill and a pharmacy receipt from Walgreens.
"I was looking for his suit, but I couldn't find it," Matthews said as her daughter looked through the bedroom of the cozy three-room apartment overlooking the Dan Ryan Expressway.
They did find 10 packages of hot dogs and five packets of okra in his refrigerator. "I just didn't see them going together," Matthews said, laughing.
And there was a large, framed photo of a smiling woman, Buchanan's mother. "It's Dootie," said a surprised but happy Jones, peeking out of the apartment's bedroom. "She was best friends with my mom."
But there was nothing about a gunshot wound Buchanan suffered in the 1940s, a wound that the Cook County medical examiner's office said caused his death Sunday morning at Mercy Hospital and Medical Center, where he had gone after feeling ill, according to relatives.
An autopsy determined Buchanan died of complications from an intestinal obstruction and a gunshot wound to the abdomen, according to the medical examiner. A secondary cause of death was listed as heart disease.
"The autopsy determined that the gunshot ultimately caused the complications to his abdomen, which eventually killed him," said Frank Shuftan, a spokesman for the office. Buchanan's death was ruled a homicide.
Buchanan had told relatives that he had been shot in the 1940s but was vague about the details, according to Matthews.
On Saturday, Matthews rested in an armchair near a window, clutching the metal file box filled with Buchanan's documents. She last saw him Jan. 3, the day before he died. "He was sitting right in this chair saying his stomach hurt so bad," she said.
"I do miss him," Matthews said.
Susan Butler, a friend for 20 years, said she remembers Buchanan mentioning the shooting incident, "once or twice" when she drove him to his favorite South Side grocery or to the doctor. Butler will miss those grocery trips the most.
"We would joke around. I was just teasing him. I would say, "It takes you 20 minutes to get out of the car,' " Butler said. "He would say, 'Yes, it does.'
"He did tell me he got shot but didn't go into any detail, though, and I didn't press him for it," Butler added.
"He was kind of a homebody, but he was a nice guy, easygoing and generous," said Butler, adding that he liked to barbecue -- chicken, ribs and hot dogs -- on a 13th floor patio during the holidays. "He liked to do things his own way.
"He was such a nice man, he was really a nice man."
